“Have you ever been convicted of a felony?” is a yes or no question found on an assortment of applications, ranging from jobs to scholarships, that most Americans answer without a second thought. Unfortunately, I’m…

Earlier this past summer, in the ACLU of Kansas’ report about the historical and social significance of the Quindaro settlement, we talked about the aspirational Kansas we fear too many residents here have forgotten. Kansas…

Come Jan. 8, the Kansas legislature will assemble to embark on its new agenda for the year. Already, numerous bills and resolutions have been pre-filed for the 2024 session, providing us with a preliminary insight…

When I was on meth, I was busy. Very busy. There was gardening to do, color-coding the closet, taking apart doorknobs, trying to put doorknobs back together and trips to Home Depot at 3 a.m.…

“If it bleeds it leads,” is a time-tested, and unfortunate, truism in the news industry. Try as we might to cast the area in a positive light, the Register’s most-read stories for 2023 involved car…

Ignore Scrooge. Reject the Grinch. Believe. There really are Christmas miracles. My own personal miracle began 44 years ago Dec. 20. Drunk as a prairie skunk, I walked through the doors of St. John’s Hospital…

I’ve missed only one Christmas with some sort of family.  Even today I can remember the pangs of loneliness while trying to steel myself with a cavalier attitude. I was 20 and attending school in…

One of the great themes of the Christmas season is surprise. Every child excited for Christmas morning understands it: the sense of wonder that comes along with an unexpected gift. From a Savior born in…

2023 was the year of the economic woman. Will it last? You get to decide.  I was born in 1976. My mother was 26 years old and recently married. The Vietnam War was over. Fat…

Ukraine surprised everyone — above all, probably, Vladimir Putin — with its determined resistance to Russia’s attack in February 2022. But now the war has ground down to a lethal stalemate. Ukraine cannot win this…